I was flirting with the wife of the owner of Dos Tacos, and I was doing so while wearing shorts. This is my own The Usual Suspects moment,

but instead of shattering a coffee mug, I just smile and praise my meal. "Thank you very much," I tell him after I pay the bill. I say so sincerely. By this point his wife has left the premises. I imagine her evacuated by a S.W.A.T team.

"Bye," he says with a nice-try-buddy smirk in his voice.

In The Usual Suspects, Verbal Kint puts it this way: "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he did not exist."

That quote has nothing to do with this story, but what Verbal says next does apply: "And like that, he's gone."

About The Author

Alex Pollack has been published in National Jurist, xoJane, The Good Men Project, Thought Catalog, Jewcy, and other publications. He graduated from Emory University, did his MFA in Creative Writing at the University of Central Florida, and did his JD at the University of Tennessee College of Law. He is now a judicial clerk in Memphis, TN, and working on short-form and long-form writing projects that will be linked to from this website.
If you can prepare a mean bowl of jayyokdopbop, please contact him immediately.